_Send your pal along. The Bumbles will jump at him. As for us, if our present colleague wasn't under notice to leave, we should be. Of course he can have his dog here. Haven't I got José? And if a parlour-maid can keep one, d'autant plus a footman. Pending the dismissal of the colleague referred to, Anne and I have to do more than we should, and are a little bored with Life. George has the best time with the car, but we make him help in the house. When are you coming to Bell Hammer? George and I were there on Sunday, and it looks topping._ _Love from us all, BETTY._ The other dispatch was from Printing House Square. Its envelope, being opened, was found to contain three other envelopes, each bearing the same superscription, viz., "Box Y779, c/o _The Times_." Valerie opened them eagerly. They were, all three, applications for the post of a gentleman-footman. After satisfying herself that no one of these was signed by Lyveden, Valerie tossed them aside unread. Then she propped herself on her elbow and poured out a cup of tea. That Fate buffets her favourites is sometimes true. Here we catch the baggage red-handed. With one cold relentless palm she threatens to take from Anthony, who hath not, even that which he hath: with the other she is strewing blossoms upon what is to be his path. With her right hand she robs the beggar, with the left she prepares for him a bed of roses. The lady of Anthony's heart loved him. It is no good beating about the bush. Pity may be akin to Love, but Interest is the boy's first cousin. Whether her heart had leaped, when she saw him, is not for me to say. She looked upon him, saw that he was good, made up her mind--and that was settled. The fact that she immediately turned her back upon him has nothing to do with the question, but may, if you please, be construed as confirming her plight. Had the round world been ten thousand years younger, when she and Anthony looked the one upon the other in the garden of _The Leather Bottel_, he would have put his arms about her, and she would have suffered him, and there in the shadow of the little inn this tale would have come to an end. That it did not so end then and there is the fault partly of a crop of conventions, which have in so many years increased out of all belief and now stand bristling between Impulse and Action, and partly of the contrariness of women, which is, we know, very ancient, but not so old as all that. It is these two marplots, which you must bless or curse, gentlemen, as the fancy takes you.